I had a distant memory of reading about the purchase in the paper—I hadn’t known at the time the way Victoria Whitney would intersect my life.
“A smart purchase. It will bode well for you in the future.” I had no idea if I even sounded sincere. “If you need advice on conserving it, I’d be happy to provide a consult. Pro bono, of course.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Victoria said. “And let me tell you. I’ve had to hire these men to protect me these past few weeks.” She leaned in and said with absolutely no irony, “Thieves are everywhere. A lot of people would do a lot of bad things to get their hands on this book.”
Exhaustion weighed heavily on my shoulders. Deep down, I’d imagined us as victorious this evening, against all odds—even in the face of Abe’s fear we’d never find the Copernicus. Every other outcome felt impossible with her by my side.
“You can’t trust people these days.” Delilah shook her head. Real sadness was etched into her voice. But she placed her hand on the case anyway. “Knowing you is a privilege, Victoria.”
“Thank you,” I remembered to add. “What an honor.”
“You’re very welcome.” Victoria lay a bejeweled hand on both of our arms. “If we weren’t in the middle of my party, I’d show you so much more of my collection. But I’ve been looking forward to showing this to an expert like yourself for weeks now.”
Delilah wrapped her arms around my waist, and I settled my lips into her hair—and whether this moment of comfort was real or feigned, I honestly could not say. But it was reassuring to inhale her scent.
“Getting to know you has been such a treat. You should be proud of the life you’ve built together,” Victoria said a little wistfully.
“You’ll find it too,” Delilah said in a low voice. A sea of complex emotions moved across Victoria’s face, some reference to their cloisters conversation I wasn’t privy to. But I was having a difficult time empathizing with the heiress in front of me. Even without the Copernicus, Victoria was still a thief. A thief that also got to own a First Folio.
“Hans and Sven are giving me stern looks,” Victoria said playfully. “Let’s go before I ignore my other guests for longer than is polite.”
We followed both men—and I noticed for the first time the guns holstered at their hips. The journey back to the party, through the confusing maze of Tudor-style rooms, felt even more surreal the second time. We passed through the library again and back out to the party.
“My hostess duties await. Do find me later?” Before we could respond, Victoria fluttered her fingers and moved seamlessly back into her adoring crowd.
I wondered if that was the last time we would see Victoria Whitney. It was wholly anticlimactic.
“Fancy a drink?” Delilah said. “Or ten?”
I smiled grimly. “Let’s go find a quiet corner in the great room where no one can hear us.” We walked past the library again, and my mind blazed with Bernard’s voice: she built secret hallways to hide her favorites.
“What?” Delilah asked. “Do you see someone in there?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Drinks, then we talk.”
But as we moved through the crowd, that nagging sensation wouldn’t go away. Even as Delilah grabbed two drinks and yanked us toward a corner with less of a crowd. She clinked our glasses together with a morbid look.
Secret hallways.
“Wait.” I grabbed her wrist, stilling her. “We might need those fast reflexes of yours.”
“For what? We’re going home. I took pictures of most of the items in her collection. If any stick—”
“Page seventeen. Bernard stole that from the McMasters Library.”
A waiter strolled past, and Delilah plopped her drink on his tray, pulling me even farther into the corner. She made a show of snuggling into my chest, bringing our faces close. “Bernard’s still selling things to her.”
“He was,” I said. “First, that photo is incriminating evidence, so that alone is a good enough reason for us to have been here tonight. But second”—I dipped my mouth to her ear—“I still think she has it.”
Copernicus? she mouthed.
I nodded.
Delilah let out an angry exhale. “Victoria’s a thief but she’s not our thief. It’s not that we didn’t get eyes on it. She never had it to begin with. Whatever ‘gut instinct’ I had about her was absolutely, positively wrong.” She was already shutting down on me. I could see it. “She admitted she’d hired the security for the Folio. The ‘new acquisition’ she was mysteriously referring to the night we met her was the Folio, not the Copernicus. And I have no idea why she was being so dismissive about the Copernicus exhibit, but technically she does know it’s been stolen.”
“Victoria told us her guards were hired for the Folio,” I said, tugging her even closer. “But we overheard her at the gala. Demanding something to be moved. Tonight. That Folio didn’t look like it was being prepped to be moved, did it?”
“I think I sent this entire agency on a wild goose chase based on a few strange coincidences and a bunch of assumptions,” Delilah argued. Defeat carved lines around her mouth. “What did Francisco say that night? Oh, our reputation would be ruined.”
“Delilah.”
She glowered at the ground. I tilted her chin up, brushed her hair from her forehead. “I had plenty of evidence that Bernard was committing crimes and I didn’t do anything about it, because I didn’t trust myself. People like Bernard, people like Victoria, move through this world with an audacity that boggles my mind. They believe they are owed anything they desire, just because they want it. They’re like schoolyard bullies, taking someone else’s toys because they can.”
“I thought you believed Bernard and Victoria were passionate about antiques.”
“I believe that they are,” I continued. “But I also believe they get a sick satisfaction from knowing things have been stolen. If Victoria can buy a First Folio, she can legally buy a third edition of On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres the next time it comes up for auction at Christie’s. But she chose to take a first edition from a museum exhibit because she could.”
That got her attention.
“Tell me about those senses,” I said gently. “The deception you sensed the night we met her. It was strong enough to lead us here.”
She held my gaze. “They’ve been blaring like a fucking foghorn.”
I knew it.
A familiar gleam came into Delilah’s eyes—a charge, a thrill, the hunter I’d follow anywhere. And it made me so happy to see I kissed her cheek.
Her fingers went up to the spot. “What was that for?” Her lips curved up.
“I hate seeing you look defeated,” I said simply.
“Well, I hate seeing you look defeated too,” she said. “When I saw the look on your face when Victoria was prattling on about that Shakespeare book, I wanted to kick Sven and Hans on your behalf.”
“You’re a true romantic, Delilah Barrett.”
The responding hopefulness and humor in her eyes almost had me blurting the words that had existed on the tip of my tongue from the moment we’d stepped into the limo: what happens between us after tonight?